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| A Journal News editorial

Above, Westchester County Legislators Michael Kaplowitz, left, and Bill Ryan in November 2012 at the Michaelian County Office Building in White Plains. The Board of Legislators voted on Dec. 30 to grant a waiver to Ryan, the board's former chairman and a former state assemblyman, to take a job with the Westchester Medical Center. A waiver is needed because the hospital does business with the county. The board's 10 legislators in attendance voted 9-1 to grant the waiver. Kaplowitz, D-Somers, voted against the waiver, saying it should have been dealt with in the new session in January. / Seth Harrison/The Journal News

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Itís a new year, and soon, former Westchester Legislator Bill Ryan will have a new job. The former Board of Legislators chairman and onetime-Assemblyman starts Monday as Westchester Medical Centerís new intergovernmental relations director. Itís a newly created job that pays $190,000 a year and fits the newly unemployed Ryan to a ďT.Ē The post also keeps the 64-year-old in the state pension system. Heís well positioned for the brand-new job, having worked with the center through those rocky years where the public benefit corporation created to run the facility still needed financial support from the county.

Except for one thing: Under Westchester Countyís ethics rules, a former county employee canít take a position with a firm that does business with the county for a year Ė unless a special waiver is granted.

No problem.

The decision-makers on granting the special waiver are Ryanís former colleagues on the Board of Legislators. But those waivers arenít really special at all, at least in the hands of the legislators. The board has repeatedly suspended provisions of the county ethics code for a county official who wanted to take a private job in conflict with the code. After all, the members of a political body are surely aware that they, too, could one day be out of office, out of work and interested in employment that could capitalize on their skills and knowledge of Westchester government.

So, why bother having a one-year wait for such employ? Because the ethics law makes sense Ė itís inappropriate to build and then immediately cash in on such connections. The Westchester Board of Legislators, though, have rendered the ethics provision all but meaningless. The Ryan decision was shoved through during the week between Christmas and New Yearís when only 10 of the boardís 17 legislators could make it to a meeting. The waiver passed 9-1.

Let ethics panel decide

Thereís been talk since 1996 of taking the waiver-granting power out of the hands of the pushover Board of Legislators and putting it with the Westchester County Board of Ethics. Determining whether to exempt someone from following the countyís ethics guidelines should be up to an impartial panel of individuals appointed to make impartial decisions on the ethics law, not a political body that can be subject to pressures of expediency or partisanship.

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Putting the Board of Ethics in charge of waivers wouldnít necessarily mean an end to them; exceptional circumstances could merit a waiver. Ryan, for example, holds the kind of expertise that could help the medical center navigate the ever-changing, complex regulations that govern the business of health care. The hospital, the top trauma facility for the region, separated from Westchester County in the late 1990s to become a public benefit corporation. The transition, though, was rough and Westchester Medical needed financial support from the county for years. Ryan, then chairman of the Board of Legislators, played a major role in Westchester Medical Centerís $75 million financial turnaround plan in 2004.

The Westchester Board of Legislators, though, hasnít met a waiver application that it didnít like. Such waivers for political brethren are routinely granted, as are others to allow former employees to work as consultants for the county. Surely not every single circumstance is that exceptional; itís time to take away the rubber stamp from politicians and let the Board of Ethics determine waivers of ethics rules.